


Before The Last Dance

by eudaimonic



Series: The Art of Being Happy [2]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Flower AU, M/M, Pastel Dan, Pastel Dan and Punk Phil, Punk Phil, companion to the lucky one, dan gives flowers to sad people, i actually recommend reading this one over the first one bc its better lol, phil draws, you dont need to read the first one to read this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-31
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2019-02-25 20:53:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 8,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13221036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eudaimonic/pseuds/eudaimonic
Summary: Kindness glows.•A retelling of my story "The Lucky One" from Dan's POV.





	1. Prologue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings for this story: brief descriptions of a past abusive childhood, drug use, cigarettes, suicidal ideations leading to eventual suicide. If you're here you've probably read The Lucky One, so you should know what to expect. Each chapter will have individual warnings.

I. Loss

Through the eyes of a child, the world is pretty big. You look around from the height of a five year old and everything is bigger than you, but your soul is mighty, you're a lion. You are anything you can imagine, and you are everything you can't. To a child, the world is big, but small. So small. Because, outside of the world you see there is nothing. No wars, no sickness, no hunger.

Of course, it depends on the part of the world you come from, but Dan's world was always like this; small, but mighty.

Five-year-old Dan was sure that, if he climbed to the very top of the tree in his grandmother's garden that he would be able to see to the edge of the earth.   
But the tall branches of the old oak, as old as time itself to a five year old, were simply too tall for him to climb, and he never made it past halfway. He didn't mind too much, he never wanted to see the edge of the world anyway.

He was content in his small world, his bubble. 

The bubble popped when he was six years old.

He didn't notice it at first, the way most six year olds don't notice - the worried glances shared behind backs, the bite marks on lipstick stained lips and black smudge of mascara hastily wiped from a cheek.

But even six year olds understand death.

"Mama?" Dan asked, shuffling quietly into the darkened room, not noticing how the curtains were drawn for the first time in months, how the light shining in from the streetlight outside tinted everything in a reddish hue. His mother held out her hand, allowing the dark mascara trails to run down her cheeks freely. Dan never hesitated in taking his mother's hand before, and he didn't then. Her soft talcum skin was cool to the touch, slightly damp, so he stayed silent and clambered onto her lap when she pulled him in, his arms wrapping around her neck. "Why are you sad, Mama?"

His mother sighed, a strange stuttering breath that tickled Dan's neck. "Mummy's just had some bad news, Danny, baby."

Dan nodded, pulling back to wipe away mascara stains with the sleeves of his pyjamas. "What kind of bad news?"

Her smile was sad, and fresh tears made new tracks down her cheeks as she took both of his hands in hers and kissed them gently. The mascara stained his skin, he didn't care. "Nothing you should worry about just yet, my dear. Now why don't we get you to bed, hm? We have to be awake early to see Grandma tomorrow."

Dan smiled, sliding from his mother's lap, his bare toes flexed through the soft fibres of the carpet. "We haven't seen Meemaw in a while."

"Meemaw has been sick, remember?"

Dan hummed, taking his mother's hand when they reached the stairs. "Yes, but she's better now? No more icky sickyness?"

She squeezed his hand lightly, almost imperceptibly. "Not exactly, Dan-Dan."

Dan felt something sinking, shallow in his chest. "Oh."

;-;-;

Hospitals were weird, the chemicals burned Dan's nose and the white colour of the walls was just a little bit off, a little too white to be natural, and the floors squeaked with every shuffling step.

Dan's grandmother's room was nice though, every surface littered with vases filled with beautifully coloured flowers, and it even smelled slightly of her lavender perfume that Dan loved - but there was still an underlying chemical smell to it all, and the mask over her wrinkled face made it hard for Dan to press his usual kiss to her cheek.

He missed her lipstick, he had realised. She always used to wear her lipstick, and leave slippery pink stains on his cheeks and nose when she kissed him back.  
He missed her being able to kiss him back too.

Dan didn't notice his mother talking to the doctor outside, or his father's grim half-smile, or the nurses pitying smile when Dan asked her when his Meemaw would be better.

"Mama?" He asked as they were leaving, leaving his grandmother behind. "Why did Meemaw have so many flowers?"

"To cheer her up, Dan-Dan." His mother told him, pulling his seatbelt over his body and ruffling his hair.

Dan frowned, unable to wrap his head around the thought. "But why?"

She sighed, glancing at his father before fixing him with a pointed - if strained - smile. "Because flowers are beautiful, they smell nice, and they're a lovely gesture. They make people smile."

"Flowers make people happy?"

She looked down and away, blinking rapidly, "they can."

;-;-;

Dan came home from school and his mother was crying again. She didn't notice him, watching her from the doorway to the living room, hands clutched tightly to his school folder and blue coat slipping down his shoulders.

The flower shop was quite a walk away from his home, but Dan got there eventually, the sun setting in the sky sluggishly. The elderly lady behind the till smiled gently when he walked in, her thin coral lips stretching prettily, and Dan had thought it must have been because of all the flowers.

"Hello dear, are you lost?" She asked, her voice lilted and strong like his Meemaw's used to be before she got sick.

"No." Dan shook his head. "I want to give some flowers to my mummy, she's sad."

The lady frowned, coming around the counter to kneel in front of Dan. "Oh dear, where is your mummy, is she outside?"

Dan shook his head again. "No, she's at home."

She looked shocked, and worried. "You walked here by yourself?" Dan nodded, biting his lip and wondering if he was going to be in trouble. "Oh, sweetheart, you shouldn't have, your mother is probably worried sick."

"Oh."

"Do you know her phone number, I can give her a call and she can come and pick you up?"

When Dan's mother arrived, it was clear she had been worrying and Dan only felt more guilty. He felt tears stinging his eyes as she hugged him, whispering urgently for him to 'never do that to her again'.   
Dan was sorry, he really was.

"What are these?" She asked, holding him out at arms length. Dan bit his lip and held the bouquet out for her to take, breath stuttering over a hiccuping whimper as he did so. His lip wobbled, he bit it harder.

"They're for you." He whispered, eyes wide and watery. "Now you can't be sad."

"Oh, Dan." His mother whispered, and hugged him.   
  
  


 

 

 

II. Gain

Dan became known for his flowers and, slowly, his mother started smiling again. Dan was happy to spread happiness, and that's exactly what his flowers did.

He didn't care about the strange looks he'd sometimes get, of the comments the adults would make about him to his parents, or his father's odd looks. At 7, he understood enough to know his flowers made people smile, and, what he  _didn't_  understand simply didn't matter.

He considered giving a flower to the new boy on his first day - because first days were always scary, but the boy didn't seem scared, so the thought was dismissed.

Dan gave it to a girl instead, when she tripped playing tag with the older kids and started crying. Her smile was bright when he handed her the blue flowers he'd picked from his front garden that morning, and the tears on her cheeks soon dried.

"Why did you do that?" The new kid asked, an inquisitive frown on his face but no malice. He was taller than Dan, and now that he was closer Dan had noticed that, at some point, he had doodled a skull on his right hand. He wasn't intimidating, however, his light eyes and skinny frame made him exactly the opposite.

"Flowers make people happy." Dan explained, "she was sad, so I made her happy."

"That can't be the  _only_ reason." The boy said, his nose wrinkling. Dan shrugged, because he didn't know what else to say; he didn't think he needed a reason to make people happy.

The boy's frown deepened as if questioning Dan's logic, before his eyebrows rose and his sideways smile turned impressed rather than confused. "Okay, I'm Phil, wanna be best friends?"

Dan smiled widely, "yes."

;-;-;

Dan gave Phil a flower in the end, on their first day of high school.   
First days  _were_ scary and, this time, Phil was clearly scared. He'd changed a lot since they were seven; two glinting silver piercings in his left ear flashed in the light whenever his floppy hair shifted enough that they could poke through. His hands were broader, rougher, and smelled faintly of cheap cigarettes. His eyes still shone but the accompanying sideways smile came less and less - especially in the colder months, like all of Phil's energy disappeared along with the sun, all of the light going out at once. Dan hated it.

So he gave him a poppy, because they were in season and he'd need one soon anyway.

The day seemed brighter after that.

;-;-;

Phil was Dan's light, from the moment they met, he had known. It was a soft feeling, sweet, like a warm cup of tea or a cozy pillow on a Monday morning.

Phil was brighter than anyone Dan had ever met; even after he dyed his hair inky black, even with the dark eyeliner he sometimes wore, and the leather jackets and clunky boots.

Dan loved him, clear as day. He knew it like he knew the world was bigger than it was when he was younger, knew it like he knew climbing to the top of a tree wouldn't reveal the end of the world and people were starving and cold and the world was at war with itself just like people were at war with themselves.

He never told him, not in words, he suspected Phil knew anyway. Just like Dan knew Phil loved him, in the way he'd roll his eyes when Dan took his hand but squeeze tightly all the same, or in the way Phil didn't care that Dan stole his favourite denim jacket, and never asked about the flowers, not after the first time.  
  
  


****  
  


 

III. Something Else

Dan's dad leaves the summer before sixth form. His mother doesn't stop crying.

Dan had given her many flowers over the years. He wonders why they never worked, at least, not for very long.


	2. Glow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for mentions of cigarettes, drugs, and suicidal ideations.

Dan liked Phil's room the best; the way there was always music playing - or being played if Phil was in that mood - and how it always smelled faintly of whatever candle Phil was burning that week to chase away the smell of stale cigarette smoke.

Dan was pretty certain Phil's mum knew he smoked in the house, if the secretive little head-tilt-eye-roll combination she gave Dan whenever Phil said something about "incense" was any indication, but Dan wasn't about to burst his bubble yet.

But the best thing about Phil's room was the window; Phil's room was in the attic, technically, refurbished for him when they moved in. Because of that, and the angled roof, the window reached almost from ceiling to floor and cast criss-crossed patterns over Phil's face whenever they sat by it, Phil's head in Dan's lap and a cigarette dangling from his fingers, ashtray forgotten as they mumble about their days and kiss occasionally. They'd stay there for hours, ignoring the cricks in their backs from the hardwood flooring, it's uncomfortableness unhindered by the squashed pillows hastily thrown down in a weak attempt to protect their bodies from the inevitable ache of a day spent sitting on the floor.

"You seem sad." Phil says on one such evening, free hand bent upwards to rest on the nape of Dan's neck. "Faraway - what are you dreaming of, Danny?"

Dan snorts. "Nothing, Phil."

Phil's nose crinkles in the way that makes Dan want to kiss it, but before he can Phil is out of reach, manoeuvring his body to sit cross legged between Dan's outstretched ones. It isn't exactly comfortable, but Dan says nothing.

"What's got you down?" He asks again, and Dan considered telling him for a moment, but finds that, when he tries to, his lips won't form the words, his tongue a sudden deadweight in his mouth. Dan has always been more of a listener, rather than a talker. He shakes his head instead, because it's easier.   
Phil frowns, rolling a freshly rolled cigarette between his fingers with his lips pursed - that's how Dan knows Phil isn't buying it, he'll press for more, so Dan stops it. He leans forward, takes the rollie out of Phil's hands and sets it on the floor beside them so he can meld their fingers together.

"Phil." He says, like a sigh but not quite. "I'm not lying to you, I'm not saying I'm happy. I'm just saying I don't know. Not all sadness has a reason."

"I know that." He mumbles, stroking his thumb over the heart Dan had drawn on his hand earlier that day. It was smudged now, faded from washing his hands, Phil kissed it and then let him go, plucking his discarded cigarette up from the floor and reaching into his hoodie pocket for a lighter.   
Dan huffs a laugh, pointing out said lighter on the floor next to the pack of rizla and grinning when Phil rolls his eyes at him, lips stretched into a tight smile around his cig.

"You're an idiot." Dan says, leaning back against the lumpy spare pillows.

"I'm your idiot." He responds, words formed by a cloud of smoke that swirls in the fading light. Dan watches as it dissipates, mingling with the fresh air.

"Hardly." He snorts, just a beat too late. Phil eyes him wearily, then jams his cigarette back into his mouth and forcefully pulls a rizla from the pack. "What are you doing, you spork?" Dan scoffs, raising an eyebrow as Phil twists one end of the rizla together. "Looks a bit malformed for a joint, Phil."

Phil pulls the cigarette from his lips, hissing out the buildup of smoke as he scowls at Dan. "It's not a joint, I'm making you something."

"Out of rizla paper?"

"Shut up a moment, I'm focusing."

Phil stubs out the cigarette when he's finished, holding out the paper flower with a proud yet shy smile. It's crooked, more tat than anything, but Dan thinks it's possibly the sweetest thing Phil has ever done for him.

"Flowers make people happy." Phil says when Dan looks at him for answers, his mouth only slightly agape.

Definitely the sweetest thing. He doesn't want to cry, so he leans forward and kisses him, says all of his "thank you's" and gives all of his emotions into that one kiss and only pulls back so he can say, "you make me happy" before he pushes back in. 

;-;-;

Dan couldn't count how many times he'd come home to his mother crying. It used to hurt, opening his front door to his mother's muffled sobs from the kitchen. He used to go to her, curl up in her lap and ask her to stop crying, when he became too old to do that, he would go out and come back with some flowers for her. But flowers never cheered his mum up, only made her hide her tears and, later, after it all became too hard to hold it back, the tears would burst out like an unstoppable tide and Dan would be helpless.   
Now, Dan feels nothing as he turns around and heads back out. It's 2am, the streets are cold, but Dan doesn't care.

He walks down the side of the motorway, the yellow lines leading his path over crunching gravel and broken glass from car crashes long past. It's those moments, the glass crunching underfoot, that Dan feels like he could be the biggest car crash of them all, if he just stepped a few inches to the left.

He never does.

The daisies that grow on the sides of the roads stop him, weeds sprouting up through the concrete and grown on the toxins of the cars buzzing past. He picks a few, carries them back home in his tightly closed fist, holding the flowers up to his face as if he could breathe through their petals. How does something so beautiful grow through such dirt? And how could anyone label them weeds? 

;-;-;

Dan doesn't have a method when it comes to giving out his flowers. He doesn't discriminate, doesn't consider how often or little he's already given to anyone. He just gives.

He's pretty sure he's never given this particular girl a flower before, but that doesn't matter. What matters is her expression, wide lips painted in a light pink turned down at the corner, her eyes downcast and her frail freckled hands twisting anxiously in her hair.

He spots her in the hallway on his way to drama.

It's no secret what Dan does, who he is, so Dan feels no qualms about going straight up to her and tucking the flower behind her ear, smiling as encouragingly as he can. The girl looks startled, her eyes shining briefly and it's that that ignites a similar spark in Dan's chest. A warmth.

It's why he loves doing this; kindness glows.

As he walks away, he makes sure to keep the smile on his face, but the bright, warm feeling in his chest is gone, dimming now that the high has worn off. It used to last, making others happy used to make him happy too. But, as with all drugs, you build up a tolerance.

And Dan's tolerance seems exceptionally high, most of the time. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How can the light glow different in the evening?  
> How can they stare distant into daylight?  
> Like it's alright  
> Like it's alright.
> 
> How | Daughter


	3. Forget

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for mentions of past childhood abuse, nothing graphic. Brief descriptions of bruising. This chapter can be skipped if that is at all harmful for anyone to read.

Every childhood has its secrets. It was no secret that Dan's parents weren't rich, that they both worked full time jobs, and that Dan, the little boy with the flowers, needed to be taken care of while they were working. It was no secret that his uncle, his mother's younger brother, was the one to do that.

No, Dan's secret was deeper than all of that.

Dan was 8, and it's a part of his childhood only remembered in flashes at night time - when his mind isn't guarded against the onslaught of memories.

He knows why his uncle treated him the way he did, tried to force Dan to change, tried to mould him into something less "gay".   
As Dan grew older, he grew to realise the effects this had on him; the fear of raised voices. The anxiety when it comes to older men, how they might react. His perfectionist tendencies. His need to be liked. The fear it might happen again.

His uncle is in prison still, and with time the fear evaporated into a defiant will to do exactly what it was his uncle hated most about him.   
But the knowledge stuck, the feelings stuck.

Dan spots the boy at lunch, sitting with a group of friends a ways away from where he is with Phil and Chris and Pj. He notices the way the boy angles himself away from the others, the way his shoulders hunch ever so slightly whenever there's a loud noise, and the way his brows furrow as if admonishing himself for it.

In some ways, the boy reminds him of Phil; his hair, dyed with a bright blue streak - a brief period in time from when Phil first began experimenting with hair dye - and gangly frame. In others, he reminds him of himself.

The nail in the coffin, the thing that settles Dan's misgivings about potentially upsetting the blue haired teen - unintentionally activating that fight or flight fear that Dan possessed not too long ago, fear that someone might notice, someone might tell - the straw that breaks Dan's back is the purplish bruise on the boy's cheekbone, just shy of a black eye.

Dan wonders how the boy must have laughed it off, claimed a fight, or an accident.  _I punched myself in my sleep trying to lift my blankets._ Or,  _I got in a fight with some guy._

Dan catches him before his next class, and silently holds out the chicory flower from the very bottom of the stem. The boy's eyes harden and soften all in an instance, his hand reaching out to hesitantly take the flower from Dan. Their skin doesn't touch.

Dan doesn't say anything at all, maybe he should have, but then maybe it isn't his place to speak.

Or maybe he was scared, that if he opened his mouth, then the truth would spill out and his secret would be told.

Nobody outside of his family had ever heard the secret and, eventually, his family forgot about it. Now if only Dan could. 

;-;-;

_Are you scared of your uncle, Dan?_

_Yes._

_Can you tell us why?_

_He's horrible._

_How is he horrible?_

_He hurts me._   
  


**Disclaimer: if you or anyone you know is in a situation that could be dangerous or harmful please contact someone. A helpline, the police, or a friend. Dan's coping methods are not healthy, and should not be followed. You** ** deserve ** **to be** ** safe ** **, both mentally and physically.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now the waves they drag you down,  
> Carry you to broken ground.  
> Though I'll find you in the sand,  
> Wipe you clean with dirty hands.
> 
> So God damn this boiling space,  
> The Spanish Sahara,  
> The place that you'd wanna,  
> Leave the horror here.  
> Forget the horror here.
> 
> Spanish Sahara | Foals


	4. Memory

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mild TW for drug use

One of Phil's favourite places was the Hippie Green, a patch of grass-covered land in the middle of the city centre that nobody cared enough about to bother to tell the kids smoking weed to clear off.

Dan was never much of a smoker himself, but he was there enough to know the regulars by face if not name - and they all knew him, but that wasn't such a hard feat what with him being, well, Dan.   
He liked to people watch as Phil smoked, imagining the lives of all of the stoners present, imagining the thoughts of the pedestrians walking by - pretending they don't notice the hive of teen-angst and rebellion happening just feet away from their path.

Occasionally, Dan had given a flower to someone in the Green. But very rarely. Quite often it's hard to tell with stoners, if they're doing it to escape or just because they want to rebel (or fit in, depending on which angle you look at it from).   
Even more rarely, did Dan ever see someone he had already given his flower to at the hippie green. But that night he sees the boy with the blue hair, and he sees the way Phil is preoccupied. Occasionally glancing in the boy's direction and then scribbling into his notebook.

A joint will be passed around the circle they're in, and Dan amused himself by counting the amount of times Phil forgot about it - 6. 

;-;-;-;

The next morning, Dan leaves his house with a yellow buttercup, picked fresh from his back garden only moments before; it takes him only one look before he's tucking it securely into one of the safety pins on Phil's leather jacket.

Phil seems surprised, holding Dan's hand limply as they're paused in the middle of the street.

"Cheer up, Buttercup." Dan murmurs, pressing a kiss to Phil's jaw.   
Phil smiles, shaking his head before pressing his lips to Dan's forehead, softly. Dan sighs contentedly, resting his arms around Phil's waist and losing himself to the feel of Phil's soft lips against his skin, his lip ring a cool contrast, as his breath fans over Dan's face - in perfect timing to the movements of his chest.

Dan lives for these moments; the small moments in time where the world feels simultaneously small and wide - where the air is simultaneously warm and cold, and you're standing with someone you love, pretending like it could last forever.

And here's a bit of colour on Phil now - other than the blue of his eyes. A little bit of Dan nestled between the glinting metal clothespin.

The walk to school isn't outwardly any different, but Dan can feel Phil practically vibrating, can feel the thumping of his heart through the air. Can feel his happiness oozing off of him like waves, and it makes Dan happy too.

Phil's happiness had always made Dan happy.

Happiness had always made Dan happy.   
  


;-;-;

So, Dan takes Pj's ribbing that evening at Drama club, just smiles along with Pj's joking grin and blushes to himself when he's reminded of how much Phil loved the flower, which also reminds him of what Phil does with the people he gives the flowers to.

He thinks about Phil, at home, sitting by his large window and drawing his own face on his sketchbook.

He must have every face from school in his sketchbooks by now, maybe even every face in town.   
Certainly.   
Every face, of course, except one.

The grin slips off Dan's face when he thinks about it.

Everyone in this room is in that book. Pj, a sprig of elderflowers given to him after his parents' divorce a few years back. The drama teacher, a pale white rose left on her desk on the last day of school before Christmas break last year.   
And Chris, though not in the room, is even in the books. Happy happy Chris. Dan had given him lavender, and he knows Chris still has it, dried out in between the pages of his favourite book, that he pretends he never reads.

The only person not in any of those books,

Is Dan himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ghosts in the photograph  
> Never lied to me  
> To be all of that  
> I'd be all of that  
> A false memory   
> Would be everything   
> A denial in my element
> 
> Take Me Somewhere Nice | Mogwai


	5. Happy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: for hints of bulimia and eating disorders towards the end of the chapter (it's when he hands the flower out if you want to skip the last part). Dan is sad. Be warned.

Dan slips out of bed when he knows Phil is sleeping and goes to the window, looking out at the blackened horizon beyond the panes. He can see a distorted reflection of himself in the glass, and he reaches out to touch his cheek. He's not sure what he's expecting - warm flesh? Smooth skin? - but he flinches when his fingertips only meet the cool hard glass. He pulls his hand away, the smudged fingerprints left behind stamp a hole in his heart and he feels guilty suddenly, like he's ruined something.

But glass can be cleaned, fingerprints swiped away like they mean nothing.

He moves back over to the bed and grazes those same fingertips over Phil's jaw, feeling the warmth and prickliness of his skin. He has a 5 o'clock shadow that Dan knows he'll shave first thing in the morning, and so he admires it while he can. He kneels down, nose brushing against Phil's and feels his breath against his face. Presses a kiss to the sleeping boy's forehead, and then stands again.

He goes to the bookshelf now, pulls out one of the journals that Phil thinks Dan doesn't know about, but keeps in plain sight and makes little to no effort to keep hidden from him.

He sits on the desk chair and flips through the pages as quietly and carefully as he can, running his fingers over the traced out faces, noting the ones who are in there two - or even three - times, and then he finds Phil's face.

Phil's old face - the face he used to have. Younger, slightly rounder, a little more pimply, and still with that gingery brown hair he so hated.  
The poppy Dan had given him that day is neatly pressed and taped on the adjacent page, and Dan's fingers trace it as he ponders.

He's not in the book - none of them - and he probably never will be. He doesn't need to be.

He gives people flowers because it makes them happy, and making people happy is enough to make him happy.   
He flicks trough it again, looking at all the faces of the people he made happy, and he smiles.  
But the thoughts keep coming. The inadequacies, the failures - the smile begins to hurt his face so he lets it drop. Flicks back to the page with Phil and just stares until it doesn't even look like Phil anymore - or the Phil who used to be, it doesn't look like the Phil that exists now, anyway.

He flicks back a few pages, eyes scouring the face of a girl he knows is in an earlier book. He can't see anything in her face that suggests a change - but Dan looks at Phil on the page and Phil sleeping and he knows there's been change. Knows there's a reason Phil is in the books on their first day of high school, and again from just the other day.

The happiness doesn't last. It's fleeting. He traces the poppy once more, the faded colour and wrinkles that come with the death of life, and then traces past-Phil's bright ginger hair, staring at his current black hair as it's splayed out on the pillow in the moonlit bedroom.   
Flowers die eventually, it seems.

A tear falls onto the desk, a mere centimetre away from landing on the page of the book Phil still has no idea Dan knows about. A centimetre from staining his hard work.   
Dan hastily closes the book and puts it gently back in its place on the shelf.

He backs away from it slowly, backs away from the thoughts that come with it - like it's poisonous. Like they'll poison him.

He's not crying.

So he just gets back into bed.

And tomorrow he'll give someone another flower. And by next week that flower will be dead.

;-;-;

He gives the flower to a teacher.

Because when she came out of the bathroom, her lipstick smudged and eyes watery, Dan wanted to make her smile.

And when she smiles at him, Dan smiles back.

When he turns away from her, he can't stop the smile from dropping - and he wonders when she'll do it again. When she'll go back into that bathroom and flush her problems down the toilet.   
Wonders how long she'll carry a toothbrush and toothpaste in her bag, and tell her students not to hurt themselves, and continue being a hypocrite for it.

The thoughts make him sad.

And he begins to wonder if he should've given the flower to her - if he knows it won't last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And please do not hurt me, love,  
> I am a fragile one, and you are the white in my eyes  
> Please do not break my heart,  
> I think it's had enough pain to last the rest of my life
> 
> Endless distraction, you worry me  
> But I'm trying to figure out how  
> You don't have to make any promises, love  
> I'm afraid I might die for you now  
> And I'd kill just to watch you as you're sleeping  
> I hope that you'll let me, in time  
> You don't have to call me yours, my love  
> Damn it, I'm calling you mine!
> 
> 10am Gare Du Nord | Keaton Henson


	6. Home

Dan halts on his way out of the door on the morning of Friday 15th May, the slumped form of his mother, curled up on one side of the couch - almost like some invisible being had taken up the rest of the space on the other end - catching his attention.   
She wasn't there when he came home last night (or early this morning) and Dan wonders how late (early) she must've came home for him to have missed her.

He doesn't wake her, just pulls the worn down blanket from the back of the settee over her body and pulls her shoes off her feet. He places them on the shoe rack, and barely pays attention to the jacket he pulls over his shoulders before he's out the door.

He laughs when Phil points out the denim on denim, pretends like he did it on purpose, and then feels guilty at how happy it makes Phil.   
Dan loves this jacket, he really does, its wool lined and heavy duty and it smells like cigarettes and vanilla shampoo - but the way Phil's eyes seem to glow with something... something like pride... makes his stomach itch.

He doesn't find anyone in school to give the sprig of lavender to, and he wishes he had drama practice just so he could avoid Phil's look of worry when they walk home together, the flower still tucked neatly into one of the pins on Phil's jacket.

He shouldn't feel worried, shouldn't feel like the flowers are an obligation; he should be happy that he's seen nobody who needs it today. And he knows that not everybody who gets a flower goes to their school, he knows there are other faces and other people who he can give them to - but he can't get it off his mind.   
Can't shake the feeling that he needs to get rid of the flower,  _now._

So he see's the lady, trundling quietly down the street, trolley trailing behind her, and he practically rips the flower out of its perch and presses it into her palm like it's made of acid.   
Acid that he tastes in his throat when Phil asks him why he gave it to the lady.   
He can't tell the truth, can't say that he  _needed to get rid of it and it needed to go right this second_. He can't say it because that's not who he is. He's Dan The Flower Boy. He gives people flowers because they need them.

So he says that instead.

And the lie settles in his heart like a knife because this time... this time he was the one who needed it.

Needed it gone.

He's not sure, but something in Phil's eyes changes - like they get wider or something, brighter maybe - and the itchy feeling under his skin disappears. He laces their fingers together when Phil kisses him, he breathes in the scent of cigarettes and vanilla and  _Phil Phil Phil_  - and he feels okay again.   
He feels like some burden has been lifted from his shoulders. Because Phil is looking at him like he's the happiest person on earth - and Dan didn't even give him a flower.

Their kiss ends sweetly, and Dan takes a moment to just breathe, remind himself that it's okay.   
Then he remembers his mother, passed out on the sofa at home, the wasted flower to a lady who didn't need it - or maybe she did, Dan hadn't really looked hard enough at her - and he decides he doesn't want to go home just yet.

So he takes Phil's hand and pulls him the way they came, veering off the path after a short while and taking him to an overpass along the motorway.

"What are we doing?" Phil asks.

"I don't want to go home just yet." Dan explains, falling forward into Phil's arms. Phil hugs him without question, and rests his lips against Dan's forehead as he says,

"We could go to mine?"

Dan shakes his head no. "Can we just be here, for a little while?"

He feels Phil smile, "sure we can. What do you want to do?"

Dan racks his brain, feels a little stupid for dragging Phil here when there's nothing to do but watch the cars drive by and read the graffiti painting the old rusted bridge vibrant colours of orange, blue, red.   
He doesn't know what he wants to do, he never has, so he says nothing. 

;-;-;

"Not for nothing, Dan, but it's getting a little cold out here." Dan opens his eyes, not having realised he'd even closed them, and notices that the sun is setting. And it is pretty cold.

"We should warm ourselves up then." He mumbles.

Phil chuckles, "how do you propose we do that, then?"

"Dancing." Dan doesn't know where the idea came from, but now he's said it he can't help but think that it's  _right_. Dancing. They should be dancing.

"Dancing?" Phil doesn't look too sure. "There's no music..."

"Be creative!" Dan laughs, exasperated, more towards the almost giddy feeling that had overtaken him so suddenly, than at Phil's cynical expression. "Come on, were standing here, in the middle of a graffitied, littered, grimy overpass. The sun is setting, it's getting cold out, and I think we should dance."

Phil outright laughs, so Dan does too. That look is back in Phil's eyes - the happy introspective look, and Dan squeaks when he's suddenly spun on the spot and pulled in by the hand. "Dancing it is then."

And the night went; the sounds of the cars whizzing by muffled underneath the sounds of their delight. And it got dark, and cold, but Phil's arms stayed wrapped tightly around him, and the light in his eyes illuminated enough for Dan to see clearly - all that he needed.   
Phil's arms, and his eyes, and the love neither of them ever spoke about.

Dan had thought he didn't want to go home, but now he knows that this  _is_ home. Home can be a person. Home can be a lover.   
He just didn't want to go back to an empty house, to an empty mother, and an empty life.

;-;-;

When he finally does get home, much later, the house truly is empty.

A note in the kitchen telling Dan his mum had gone out, would be home late.

The heatings off, the inside just as cold as the outside.

And all Dan can think of is,  _at least I didn't come home to the sound of her crying._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If the sky we look upon,  
> Should tumble and fall,  
> Or the mountain should crumble to the sea,  
> I won't cry, I won't cry,  
> No, I won't shed a tear,  
> Just as long as you stand, stand by me
> 
> Stand by Me | Bootstraps
> 
> ** i actually imagined them dancing to Home by Edwina Hayes but i changed the chapter song bc i became obsessed with it while editing


	7. Yellow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW sadness and feels and mentions of depression

They say Van Gogh ate yellow paint because he thought yellow was a happy colour, that by ingesting it he could somehow transfer some of its happiness into himself. It's a lie, of course. A fabrication of time made up to romanticise the simple fact that Vincent Van Gogh wanted to die. He knew the paint was toxic... that it could kill him.   
So it's true, then; yellow is a happy colour, and yellow paint is toxic. Happiness can be toxic - if you swallow too much of it.

So kindness glows, and happiness is Dan's drug of choice - his opium.

And now he's overdosed. 

;-;-;

Dan's mother isn't home on Saturday, and he can't quite bring himself to leave the house or answer his phone.   
He checks it, of course, hoping his mother would call - tell him where she is, tell him she isn't dead in a ditch somewhere or near-dead in hospital with alcohol poisoning.   
He thinks he would know by now, if that were the case - so she must still be alive.

But she isn't back on Sunday either, and when Monday rolls around he doesn't see the point in attending school - it's not like anyone's here to scold him for it. So he sits on the sofa, curled up in the blanket he'd tucked his mother into not three days ago, and tries not to cry.

The next day he's woken up by the sound of vomit hitting a porcelain basin, and the relief almost makes him faint before it's consumed by anger... a sickening feeling of desperation for  _something_  different. It should be him coming home at 5am and throwing his guts up, it should be his mother who drags him out of the bathroom and into bed, leaves a bottle of lucozade and some paracetamol on the bedside table.

He shouldn't have to do it for her, shouldn't have to be the adult.

But he does, and he tries not to grimace at the stench of vomit, tries not to drop her on the landing or hit her head off of the door frame, and he doesn't even have to try to pretend everything is okay because she was unconscious before he even got up the stairs.

He wonders if she even noticed him on the sofa, or if the alcohol made everything on the edges too blurry for her to see.

;-;-;

There's this feeling you get when you're in a car, driving along country roads just slightly too fast - and the road dips, and your stomach does this flippy over thing.   
Dan's always loved that feeling, always sought it out ever since the first time he felt it as a child, visiting his grandmother's old house in the country.   
But the thing about that feeling is, you can never find it when you look for it. When you're expecting it, it just doesn't come. You can't force it, and it's the same with every feeling.

Dan can't force his stomach to flip over any more than he can force his mother to be happy, or any more than he can force himself to accept that she never may be.

But he can't.

So he leaves a lily on his mother's bedside, and he takes its partner to school with him.

Phil isn't waiting for him in the morning, and Dan doesn't blame him for it since he hasn't talked to him since Friday, but he feels the coldness creeping in around him as he walks to school alone.

He feels like his head is in a bubble, like he's moving against a tide that's trying desperately to push him back. He turns his head, and it feels more like his head turned him than the other way around.

He's not himself.

Not today.

Not any day.

Not for a while.

So he keeps the flower, he doesn't go to drama, or straighten his hair, and he doesn't look for the unhappiness of others because he has enough inside of himself already.

At lunch he lays his head in Phil's lap and watches him, watches the sunlight glinting off of his silver lip ring, listens to him humming a song and thinks about the way the murmurs sound in his chest. Thinks about dancing, and home.   
Phil glances at him and smiles, but the smile is stretched, concerned, he's concerned for Dan and Dan doesn't miss it when his eyes flicker to the flower Dan's been twirling between his fingers all day.

And a new feeling settles in his chest.

Heavy, final. 

;-;-;

The lily no longer sits on his mother's bedside table, it leans delicately against the rim of an old jam jar on the kitchen counter; he sees it for what it is, a peace offering, and Dan stares and stares and stares until his vision blurs, his hands balled into tight fists, and his own lily becomes a casualty to Dan's breakdown. It's delicate petals, bruised and crushed, lie innocently at his feet.

Dan thinks about what that means - thinks about his face joining the others in Phil's books, a perfectly drawn yellow lily accompanying it, while the real lily lies there destroyed by his own hands.   
He didn't deserve the lily. He doesn't deserve a place in Phil's books.   
He deserves nothing at all.

And despite it all, despite the flower he so unkindly gifted himself, despite the peace offering from his mother and the light in Phil's eyes and the steadily warming weather; Dan still isn't happy, and the colour yellow means absolutely nothing to unhappy people.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do you know your lip shakes  
> When you're mad?  
> And do you notice when you're sad?  
> You don't like to be touched,  
> Let alone kissed.  
> Does his love make your head spin?
> 
> You Don't Know How Lucky You Are | Keaton Henson


	8. Solipsism

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Solipsism  
> /sɒlɪpsɪz(ə)m/  
> noun  
> • the view or theory that the self is all that can be known to exist.

Dan is sick to his stomach before he's even really awake. He feels a heavy guilt pressing in on him from all sides; he withheld happiness from others for his own selfish needs and he knows it's because h gave the flower to himself, and he gave it to himself because he didn't try hard enough to look for someone to give it to.   
He didn't try.   
And now he has to fix things - quickly. Before time runs out.

There's something else besides the guilt just sitting there, at the back of his brain, behind every thought and every decision - smirking and burning away. It's like a shadow over his mind. It's calling out to him, offering him a way out of the bubble of guilt, but he can't listen.

It's like someone had placed a timer on his heart attached to a bomb in his brain at birth and he's only just noticed - like after all this time he can finally see it now, can see the numbers ticking away.   
It was quiet before, ignorable, but now? But now the ticking is loud, like a grandfather clock, or a gong. It's too loud to ignore, but he must try. He has to try because it's toxic, it'll kill him if he gives in.   
And the shadow is still smirking. Still offering its fiery hand. It's singing along to the ticking noises, it's telling him he's going to fail.

He can't accept that yet.

So he hands out flowers, he tries to laugh. He tries he tries he tries. He gives as many flowers as he has - until they're all gone.   
And at the end of the day his laughs turn to hiccuping sobs and the ticking clock is now a siren and it's warning him, warning him to go back stay away!  _Danger! Danger!_

The shadow is standing over him, the guilt is all evaporated away by its oppressive heat and now there's nothing in Dan's mind but the shadow and it's siren.

And Dan can't ignore it.

And he's no longer sure if he wants to.

Because the flowers don't work, and if the flowers don't work then what will?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will go if you ask me to  
> I will stay if you dare  
> And if I go, I'm goin crazy  
> I'll let my darlin take me there
> 
> If I Go, I'm Goin | Gregory Alan Isakov


	9. Disintegrate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SERIOUS TRIGGER WARNINGS: romanticisation of suicide in this chapter, not something I advocate but I felt it was who Dan's character was. Sorry. Please don't read if you are in any way triggered by notions of suicide. This is THE chapter guys. You know the one. (Also the complete 180 in tone is deliberate).

There's something gratifying about knowing something nobody else knows. Dan would laugh, wanted to laugh at the world, the people around him. None of them had any clue, none of them could know.   
Dan's head was as clear as it had ever been on his last day of school, of course, nobody else knew it was his last day. It was just a Thursday. Thursday the 21st May.

A completely unremarkable day in everyone's calendar - except Dan's. Because Thursday the 21st of May is Dan's last day.

As he's walking through the corridors, fingers trailing over the black scrape marks on the walls and shoes scuffing the floor for one last time, Dan wonders how people will think of this day from that day on. Will it be the day Dan didn't have any flowers? The day a boy in a class long past died? Or will it just be any other day.

One day, he muses, one day the day I die will just become another day.

Dan can tell his friends are worried, so he keeps them talking. About anything and everything, just to keep the questions at bay.   
He feels bad, somewhat, knowing how hard it would be at first, but none of them ever really needed him; because Pj and Chris have each other and Phil has his future.

Dan only has his flowers, and a happiness long since faded. He'd outgrown himself long ago, outgrown the image he had made for himself as a young naive child, believing that a simple flower could make someone happy. Could change anything. He knows now that they can't, not forever, because even flowers die - and the flowers you pick die the quickest.

Dan only shares one class with Phil, and it's when he walks in 5 minutes late that it really hits home that this is the last time he'll be here. The last time he'll apologise for his tardiness and smile sheepishly, the last time he'll hold Phil's hand under the desk and forget to take notes from the smart board because he's too busy thinking about Phil's fingers stroking his knuckles.

Dan pulls Phil's hand onto the desk, uncaring that the class will see, that more assumptions will be made, and turns it so it's facing palm upwards.

"What's up?" Phil mumbles, leaning in close so as not to rouse the class with his words.

Dan shrugs and draws a flower on Phil's wrist, right where his veins are most visible. "Mines full." He whispers back, tugging up his sleeve to show the same doodles drawn up Dan's arms. "Is this ok?"

Phil smiles. "Of course."

"Thank you."

At lunch Dan ignores the looks he's getting from everyone around. He ignores it all and enjoys his last day, enjoys the way the sun is shining and he doesn't stress about exams like everyone else because he won't be doing them.

On the way home, Phil asks him if he wants to go to the Hippie Green and he says no, makes up a lie. He knows Phil will be out all night, and that's fine.   
They reach Dan's gate and Dan takes a moment to just look at Phil, take him in.

"What?" Phil asks, blushing.

Dan shakes his head. What do you say to someone when you know it's the last thing you'll ever say to them? How do you say goodbye to somebody you love with all of your heart?   
For a moment, he wants to forget he ever planned this. Wants to fall into Phil's arms and go out with him and smoke and live a little longer, but then he looks up and sees his shadow against Phil's body and the doubt is gone.   
There's no longer a shadow inside of Dan; Dan is the shadow.

"Goodbye." Dan says. It's not enough, but no words ever could be.

"I'll see you tomorrow?"

Phil's hands twine with his, a soft smile playing at his lips, and Dan feels Phil's finger circle around one of the flowers he'd drawn on his wrist earlier that day.

Dan steps away, nods, and watches as Phil's body walks away.

;-;-;

Dan doesn't go in his house. He goes to the flower shop instead, he chats with the young woman behind the counter, remembers another who once served him, helped him make a bouquet for his unhappy mother and told him she'd love them and love him - even though he ran away, even though he worried her.

He can't recall when the older woman was switched out for the younger. He feels like it's something he should know, but lately he's been so caught up in his own world that he's forgotten to look at the real one, and, in the meantime, it seems to have gone on without him.

The girls asks him what he wants to buy and he buys some red roses, because they mean love.   
And Dan has never really given a red rose to anyone before.

He tears them apart on the way home. All but one, which he drops on the mat by Phil's door as he passes by, ignoring the pang in his heart at giving out his final flower. Knowing what it means. Knowing that Phil won't find it until it's already too late.

His hands are bloody, from the thorns he'd carelessly allowed to dig into his skin, and he continues his mild destructive streak as he allows the blood to drip onto his bathroom floor, onto the sink, on his white canvas shoes.

One last deep breath and he meets his eyes in the mirror - sees the shadow in them.

One last deep breath.

-

_End._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You could still be,  
> What you want to,  
> What you said you were,  
> When I met you.   
> You've got a warm heart,  
> You've got a beautiful brain   
> But it's disintegrating,  
> From all the medicine.
> 
> Medicine | Daughter


	10. Epilogue - On Happiness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for reading, I hope your kindness glows.

Though a lot of things are final, often times you'll find that things just keep going - even after the end.

Like a marvel movie - there's always an after credits scene.

For a long while, my life after Dan felt like that; an after-credits scene. An add-on to something larger, something more important.

But then life after Dan kept going, and eventually, life after Dan became simply 'life itself', and what once seemed so important became muted - not so much muffled, just very far away.

It is a past I look back on with a fond ache in my heart.   
But a past nonetheless, that I overcame.

And I wrote it all down, let the world see, and Dan's story became the world's story, became some actor's reality for a brief moment, but it was always my reality.

And it will always be my truth.

I still love Dan, but Dan is no longer my only love.   
And the pain is no longer the most important part of who he was - only love, and happiness, and kindness.

Because his kindness glowed, and now his legacy shines.

Because today is May 21st 2022, and today my flower goes out to the little girl learning to ride a bike in Central Park, and her scraped knee matters a lot less with a pretty daisy in her hair. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How was I to know,  
> I couldn't live without,  
> Your arms around me?  
> If you'd only come back now,  
> I'd not let you down again.
> 
> And how could you allow,  
> Allow me to love you so?  
> How cruel a thing.  
> If you'd only hold me close,  
> I'd not let you go again.
> 
> How Could I Have Known | Keaton Henson


End file.
